C*MAR’s Story. Told by Nick Sherman (chopped and screwed)

Hello, my name is Nick. I am 22 years old. I’m currently an artist and a graphic designer living in Portsmouth, Ohio. Not even against my will. Everyone likes a good story. This one is about C*MAR clothing. Our start and rise to power (and by “power” I mean Portsmouth).

My brother, Connor Sherman, and I came to Shawnee State University to pursue graphics design degrees and play collegiate soccer. While living in the student housing townhouse our first year , we met two other artists; June Borell, and Dominique Johnson.

Connor, June, and I found ourselves our second semester of college in a class called Creative Process. This class was taught by a man named Laine Raiser. He spoke very softly and made his class sit in a circle of chairs without desks. The class was full of freshmen all staring at each other blankly the first day just as confused at their predicament as we were. Laine didn’t give traditional grades, he didn’t seem to have any particular agenda. The first week of class we drew our “creative monsters” and wrote a post-card to our childhood selves. It seemed like some real hippy, spiritual, blim-blam.

What we found after a few weeks, however, was that Laine was more free and creative and skilled artistically than any of us wanna-be’s. Not everyone saw that, but we did. We listened and followed and soon enough we were making art very freely, in a way we’d never experience previous. Based on his prompts and assignments we’d work on art longer, we’d exhaust an idea further, we tried new mediums, larger canvases, and we were willing to make ourselves uncomfortable for the sake of growth. We’d stay up to 3 or 4 in the morning sometimes making art for one single homework assignment with class still at 9:00am that day. Nothing was more gratifying then that total careless, immersive, abandon in our new creative process. We were learning what it meant to be creative, and we found confidence as artists.

Then the class ended. Just when it seemed that we had reached the height of our creative adventuring, we no longer had anything to pour our artistic souls into. “What now?” we thought. So in the spirit of creating, we made something NEW to rectify our need to create. C*MAR clothing was born. C*MAR is an acronym for “Creative Minds Are Rare.” At the time it was just a cool thing to say that we could associate ourselves with, and as time went on we attatched more meaning to it.

There are four members of our group, Connor Sherman, June Borell, Dominique Johnson, and myself. As we’ve developed; roles have been assigned, friendships have formed, heartbreak has been had, and we challenge ourselves everyday through this standard of creativity.

I can honestly say when we set out to become an art collective and clothing brand we had no plan at all. We couldn’t have had less of a plan if we had dropped out of school and found a place to squat and make art…. The point is we were just being kids making things that excited us, and we weren’t using school work as our only excuse to be creative. We made our own excuses and obligated ourselves to these huge projects with no idea how we would accomplish them or if we would just end up looking foolish and over-ambitious.

In 2013 we made A SINGLE T-SHIRT on a print to order site. We thought at that moment, right then with a t-shirt of our own in our hands, that we had made it. We had success. We were on the map. That was the single greatest T-shirt ever to have been created in human history because we made it.

Since that single over-gratifying moment we have had 9 significant shows either in Portsmouth, Ohio or in Columbus, Ohio. These shows include the following;

Two shows at the Vern Riffe Center For The Arts known as, “The Vern Riffe After Dark”

super c*ult DJ Cody Minton

Two shows with “Heart of it All” in Columbus, Ohio

Art and clothing exhibition, and Fashion Sponsor.

A show with RAW artists in Columbus, Ohio

the famous head shot from that night. One happy family of dingy artists.

Art and clothing exhibition

The Undergrad Art Show at SSU, “four years and all we have to show for it…”

Student Art Show

Most recently we started a C*ULT….

All this based on and around the Creative Process, and it’s epic journey. So then, don’t let your creative endeavor rolled about in stagnation and uncertainty. Find a group of people you can be creative with and get to it. Learn something about yourself. Mabey we can help!

Leave us a comment below. How do you know of C*MAR? What is creativity to you? Questions?

Join us at the next Creative C*ULT Jan. 24th 8p-9p at the Southern Ohio Museum of Art.